When we leaked the official ROM and radio image for the HTC Thunderbolt's Gingerbread update last week, users were understandably excited. An official Sense, Gingerbread ROM was probably highest on the list of demands for Thunderbolt users (aside from better battery life, perhaps).

Unfortunately, at this time, we have to officially advise anyone using any ROM based on this leak to revert to a Froyo build or to CyanogenMod 7 as soon as possible.

When we posted on the work-around for enabling the Netflix app on unsupported devices, more than a few of you weren't thrilled to hear that the fix didn't work on the Thunderbolt. We knew a fix would come eventually, and now we're happy to report that the developer community has delivered; they've found a way to get the Netflix app working on the Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, there is a bit of bad news, too: it only works on devices that are rooted and running a Gingerbread ROM.

UPDATE: The Gingerbread radio is apparently being linked to hard bricks. We have removed the link for the time being, until this issue is resolved, or a new radio version is leaked.

This morning 911Sniperdropped a leaked Gingerbread test build for the HTC Thunderbolt, but there was one issue: it wasn't flashable. Our buddy Justin Case from TeamAndIRC immediately took it to the lab and started dissecting its parts to see what needed to be done.

Word via DroidLife's tipsters is that an update for the HTC Thunderbolt is rolling out now. As this just started happening, details are a bit light at the moment, but Kellex surmises that this is the same update we heard about a few weeks ago, and we're inclined to agree.

Assuming this update is an improved version of the one we heard about a few weeks ago, it will be packin':

We're impatiently awaiting details from our guy Justin of TeamAndIRC - in case you haven't heard, he's pretty close to ground zero of the Thunderbolt modding gang, and he's had his hands on various iterations of this update for a few weeks now.

Holy mother of all hotness - Amazon has been absolutely killing it in the mobile deals lately, already firmly capturing our Deal of the Week spot with the sweet $174.99 HTC Thunderbolt deal.

Update 5/10/11: The deal is back for a limited time again! Judging by the last promotion, this one will expire sometime before May 15th.

Forget that - the new $129.99 Thunderbolt deal that just went live on Amazon Wireless is the lowest recorded for this phone to date, making the price of the first 4G LTE Verizon handset almost half of what you would pay at Verizon ($250).

Verizon's pair of LTE handsets are sure to confuse some shoppers - though one is from Samsung (the DROID Charge) and the other from HTC (the ThunderBolt), the two sport relatively similar feature sets and designs that somewhat resemble one another. So what's the difference? Well, aside from the Charge being $50 more expensive than the already-pricy ThunderBolt, there really aren't many differentiators - let's take a side-by-side look at their spec sheets:

Spec type

DROID Charge

ThunderBolt

CPU

1GHz Hummingbird

1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655

Display

4.3" Super AMOLED Plus

4.3" SLCD

OS

Android 2.2 (Froyo) with TouchWiz UI

Android 2.2 (Froyo) with Sense UI

Front camera

1.3MP

1.3MP

Rear camera

8MP with 720P HD recording

8MP with 720p HD recording

RAM

512MB

768MB

Internal storage

2GB

8GB (though not all of that storage is usable)

Included SD card

32GB

32GB

DLNA support

Yes

Yes

Buttons

Physical

Capacitive

Size

130 mm x 68 mm x 12 mm

122 mm x 66 mm x 13.2 mm

Weight

143g

177g

Battery capacity

1600 mAh

1400 mAh

Price on contract

$299

$249

As you can see, neither device is anything to scoff at, though - at least in my eyes - the fact that the ThunderBolt runs Sense UI turns the tide in its favor (despite the Charge's superior screen and slightly thinner profile).

Yes, you read right - CyanogenMod 7 for the Thunderbolt. We're super excited, too, because we can finally get our Thunderbolt Gingerbread on! But, please be careful, this is a pre-Alpha release (that means the release before the release before the beta), so be careful. Here's what does not work:

-USB Tethering does not work. -Phone Testing menu does not display correct radio options. If you play with it, you will have to relfash a Stock based rom to 4G back.

Verizon released the first subscriber figures for its rapidly expanding 4G network today - presumably to highlight strong sales of the carrier's first 4G handset, the HTC Thunderbolt.

Of the 565,000 (500,000 is the number Verizon added to its subscriber base in Q1) 4G users, about 260,000 are utilizing Verizon's LTE service via an HTC Thunderbolt. This means that since the launch of the Thunderbolt on March 17, Verizon has been gaining over 100,000 new LTE subscribers a week.

We first showed you HTC's 3.0 version of Sense UI earlier this week, and the next logical question from a lot of people was "when am I getting this?" Well, one man went straight to HTC via Twitter with that same question in mind and the response he got back was not exactly what anyone had hoped to hear: never.

There's no doubt that the HTC Thunderbolt is a hot commodity if you're on Verizon Wireless, and if you've been considering picking up this blazing fast 4G LTE device, now might be the best time hop on it. Wirefly is offering up a special deal on the TBolt if you use coupon code THUNDER0418 at checkout, which gives you $50 off (bringing the total down to $150), free shipping, and a month of free mobile hotspot (expires on May 15th).